Is OC'ing without HT cheating?

Hey guys.

Well, R/C season is just about done here, back to computers!

Okay!

This old C0 tops out at around 4160mhz with HT on. Maybe I can go for more now that the house is a bit cooler.. But running it with HT off, Im at 133x32 and it seems to be running just fine I know Im cheating already lol. I just want to see what this old dog can do before she goes into a home theater pc

I don't think so. It's been shown to improve gaming performance, it runs ~10*C cooler, and you can OC higher.

Seems like a win-win to me!

If you need to do video-encoding, create 2 BIOS profiles. 1 w/o HT for gaming and general usage. And then a profile for encoding w/ lower clocks, but w/ HT enabled. Best of both worlds!

Not at all, many things don't benefit from HT at all, and some (very few, but some) actually run slower with it enabled.
It's all about fitting your application(s).